August 12, 2012 | 4:00 p.m.

The Most Radical Prayer You Only Thought You Knew

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 11:1–4
Matthew 6:7–13

This summer, our sermon series has been exploring some of the most familiar passages of scripture in the Bible. In both public and private expressions of Christianity, perhaps nothing is more familiar than the Lord’s Prayer. And because of that familiarity, most of us don’t spend much time reflecting on it. We say it from memory without even thinking. We can speak it each week and never listen to it. We can pray it with regularity without letting it speak to us.

So this afternoon I want to spend some time thinking about this familiar prayer and perhaps help it to become a little less familiar so that we can truly hear what these words are saying—to God, to us, and to the world in which we live.

One thing you will notice as we turn to the Gospel passages in which Jesus shares with his disciples what we’ve come to call the Lord’s Prayer is that neither version recorded in the New Testament sounds exactly like the traditional version we typically pray, though the version in Matthew is pretty close. I want to share with you both passages, first in the traditional King James translation, which is the basis of our liturgical use of the Lord’s Prayer, and then in the new Common English Bible, which renders this familiar text in more contemporary English.

First, from the Gospel of Luke, which sets up the scene with a request from Jesus’ disciples:

And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

And he said unto them, “When ye pray, say, Our Father
   which art in heaven,
   hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
   Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one
   that is indebted to us.
   And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

And then the more familiar version from the Gospel of Matthew:

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

The doxology at the end—“thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory”—does not appear in the oldest manuscripts of the Bible and is probably not part of the original prayer, yet it is so familiar to us that it is hard to imagine the Lord’s Prayer without it.

Now, hear these passages again, this time from the Common English Bible, and try to hear them as prayers that we might actually pray ourselves in our own language. First, from Luke:

Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Jesus told them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, uphold the holiness of your name.
Bring in your kingdom.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who has wronged us.
And don’t lead us into temptation.’”

And, again, from Matthew:

When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask. Pray like this:
Our Father who is in heaven,
uphold the holiness of your name.
Bring in your kingdom
so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” An earnest request from disciples longing for a deeper connection with God, looking to pray in the particular way of their master.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” Because prayer is not always the most natural of spiritual disciplines and, quite frankly, scares many of us.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” A common prayer binds us together as a community of faith.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” What and how we pray shapes and reflects who we are as Christians.

Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas have written a short book on the Lord’s Prayer that envisions it as something like a shorthand primer on what it means to be a Christian. “Think of Christianity, not primarily as a set of doctrines, a volunteer organization, or a list of appropriate behaviors,” they write. “Think of Christianity as naming a journey of a people. . . . By praying the Lord’s Prayer we are being made into a people whose journey is a sign to the world that God has not abandoned the world to its own devices but is present as a people on the move” (William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer and the Christian Life, pp. 13–14).

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Like Willimon and Hauerwas, we could dissect the Lord’s Prayer and examine each of its constituent parts. What does it mean to call God “Father” in this prayer? What is heaven and what does it mean to say that God is there? What’s up with the holiness of God’s name? Does God really provide us with food and nourishment? What is the nature of forgiveness envisioned here? Is there actually a danger of God leading us into temptation? Who is the evil one from whom we need deliverance?

These are all good questions, but today I want to focus on just one line: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” “Bring in your kingdom so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.” I want to suggest that this line makes this common, familiar prayer the most radical prayer you only thought you knew. John Dominic Crossan has called it a revolutionary manifesto and hymn of hope (John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer). What we repeat so often without even thinking about it is a radically subversive prayer that envisions the end of life as we know it and the birth of something new, the emergence of God’s kingdom all around us.

For me, as always, the starting point is Jesus’ first words as recorded in the Gospel of Mark: “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” (Mark 1:15).

“Now is the time!” The Jesus of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) seems much less interested in the afterlife and much more concerned about what’s going on in the world right now. His good news isn’t about redemption in the future or delayed rewards. Rather, it is all about the current realities of the world we live in, the current realities of the communities in which we find ourselves, the current realities of our individual lives.

Look all over the world, look around our communities, look inside your own heart, and it is clear that the way things are right now is not the way God wants them to be. In the story of creation, God calls everything good—and calls humanity very good—but would God do the same today? Would God look at violent tragedies and call them good? Would God look at our treatment of the earth and call it good? Would God look at our broken lives and call them good? Maybe not.

But God has in mind the radical transformation of these realities. Jesus calls this the “kingdom of God” and comes on the scene to announce that it is on the way. In fact, it’s emerging all around us, all the time. According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is like yeast hidden in flour: eventually it works its way through the whole and transforms it into something new. God’s good news is a catalyst of change that is constantly at work, growing and transforming the world.

This is what Jesus has in mind when he tells us to pray for God’s kingdom, to pray that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. We don’t really know what heaven is, whether it’s a real place far away, a remaking of the world we live in now, or a metaphor for the way things would be if they were as God wants them to be.

But notice that Jesus doesn’t instruct us to pray that we might get into heaven when we die. Heaven is not a destination. Rather, heaven is the model for how things ought to be right here, right now. We don’t go to heaven; heaven comes to us. When the emergence of God’s kingdom is complete, heaven will be here, all around us.

In Jesus’ day, in his part of the world, Caesar was lord of all. “Caesar is Lord” was the creed of the empire. So when the followers of Jesus began to say that “Christ is Lord,” it was clear to people in that context that two radically different allegiances were being contrasted. And when these followers prayed for the coming of the kingdom Christ spoke of, it was just as clear that they were praying for the overthrow of Caesar’s kingdom and lordship. That was a radical and subversive prayer.

It still is today, though you would never know it based on the way most Christians pray it. But God is just as interested in reshaping the world today as during the days of Jesus and his first followers. What out there in the world needs to be transformed or overthrown? What in our own lives needs to be changed and reshaped?

This is what we are praying for when we utter these familiar words we think we know.

I wonder, are we ready for this kind of radical and subversive prayer?

I know for sure that God is ready.

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Amen.